Back From the Brink
by GalaxyShark
Summary: The Doctor and Martha Jones stumble across a seventeen year old Time Lady lost in time and space. Uncertain of how she stands in his timeline or even who she is, the Doctor invites her to travel with him and share the adventures of the TARDIS and a true Time Lord. What would happen if the Doctor was not alone? What becomes of a Time Lady raised on Earth?
1. Time Lost

**Episode 1 - Time Lost**

The whirring of engines slowed as the TARDIS came to a relatively smooth (only a little bumpy) stop.

"So, where are we this time then?" Martha Jones asked, the light of new adventure filling her eyes and lighting her grin.

"Near future Earth, by the looks of it… 2012. Good year." The Doctor replied, readjusting a screen.

"Is that all? That's not very exciting. What can happen in five years?"

"It may not be exciting for you, but all time is relative to me…" she straightened up, hands buried deep in his trouser pockets. "Besides! With my luck just wait five minutes, something exciting is bound to happen. Olympics are this year."

"Who knows? You might get to carry the torch." Martha joked, walking to the door. She smiled at the Doctor's knowing grin. "Meet the Queen?"

"_Well_… Never know."

The air that hit them on the other side of the TARDIS doors was hot and muggy, but a faint breeze that smelled lightly of city streets and fresh chips stirred their hair. Bright green summer leaves glowed like lit emeralds with the sun shining bright behind them.

"Why here, Doctor? Where are we? …Doctor?" She turned to see him frozen; as if stopped in time. Only his wide brown eyes moved, jumping from one direction to the next, searching. "Doctor, what is it?"

"Something is wrong. Something is here that shouldn't be here."

"What is it?" She repeated.

He took a deep breath, steeling himself against the weight of the words. "A Time Lord."

She froze, her eyes scanning him as he looked everywhere else. "But… how?"

"I don't know… It's impossible." Ignoring what he knew, he took off at a run, his long brown coat billowing behind him. It was all Martha could do to keep up, her shoes not being as qualified for long runs as the Doctor's white converse. The streets of a bustling city passed them by in their dash to wherever the madman led them. People yelled at them to slow down in an accent that betrayed their location as somewhere in Ireland. When several city blocks had passed and Martha was finding it a bit hard to breathe the Doctor finally came to a stop, sudden and halting. In front of a cast iron fence, he stood like a frightened statue.

"Excuse me, sir," The Doctor, barely winded, stopped a man walking by. "where are we and what is this place?" He pointed to the brick building beyond the fence.

"This is Dublin. You lost?"

"…Kind of. And this building, what is it?"

"Saint Mary's. It's a government funded boarding school for orphaned and troubled girls. It used to be a school of some worth, but you never hear anything good about it anymore." The Doctor thanked him for his time and the man strolled away. Martha watched her Doctor stare at St. Mary's with eyes so full of hope and fear, curiosity and confusion that it seemed the place—or time and space—should have melted before his unyielding gaze. The face that could be so many masks now barely contained the fervor and the fury of hope he didn't dare to hope for. A twinge of fear all her own bubbled up in her. The Face of Boe said the Doctor was not alone. If there was another Time Lord around, would he still need his human companion?

"Doctor…?" She spoke up when he hadn't spoken for a few minutes; always a warning sign.

"We're going in." and he was off again at a brisk walk through the gate.

"So, it's a boarding school for girls. Does that mean we're looking for a female Time Lord? What do you call those, anyway?"

"They were called Time Ladies."

"Oh, I guess I should have known."

"Yeah. It may not be a student, though. It may be staff… Or just a fluke. Or a trap."

"Always looking at the bright side…"

"Easier to know when to run." He opened the doors to the expansive school, startling the receptionist. "Hello! Surprise inspection." He said in a dashing Irish accent, flashing his psychic paper. "I'm from the school board. We've been hearing some things about this place—things we aren't too happy about. I'm here to make sure St. Mary's is running to our standards. I will need a complete list of your classrooms, staff, living areas, and your student roster, with the especially troubling cases highlighted. Expect I will be doing some interviews while I'm here." The poor receptionist never got a word in between his barrage of demands and no-nonsense glare, so she set to work acquiring all the documentation. The Doctor winked at Martha, and they shared a smirk while the woman's back was turned.

After some time, the papers found their way into the Doctor's hands and he started looking over names, mumbling them as he read.

"What did you say your name was?" The receptionist asked.

"John Smith, and this is Martha Jones. Thank you for this." He waved the papers and started walking down the corridor to the right.

"How will the names help you? There's hundreds here!" Martha commented, taking the map of the grounds and the list of student names from him.

"Names are very important, Martha. Have you forgotten Shakespeare already?"

"No, but… There's so many! Nedder, Sarah…"

"I don't expect it to be a student. The Time Lords have been gone too long… It's probably a member of the staff." He said, eyes boring through the aforementioned staff's names.

"…Niland, Dora… North, Ender—Oh, _that_ poor girl."

"What was that?" he stopped and looked at her page.

"Ender North. See, there. She's even highlighted."

"North, Ender. North-ender! It's just a hunch, but we're checking it." He checked the building she was housed in and the room number to the map in Martha's hand.

"How is that a hunch?"

"Lots of planets have a north..." The Doctor's gait was more measured this time, more calculating. Why was something here now? He had been to this time before. Better than 'why' was 'how.' There were none left…

"The clock says its only one, yet. There's a good chance she may still be in classes." Martha said. The Doctor nodded, looking a little too intently at the map. Through another set of doors was a courtyard, sparsely occupied by clusters of girls. Eyes of many different ages looked up at them as they passed, whispering, wondering. Another white-trimmed brick building welcomed them in.

"157 is that way." Martha pointed down the left hallway. Sweat was building on the Doctor's brow: And then suddenly, there was the door. "Are you alright?" Martha asked, placing a hand on his arm as he took out his sonic screwdriver.

He took a deep breath "Yeah…" There was a flash, a whirr, and a click and the door swung open to a small, bright room and the startled green eyes of the room's sole inhabitant. She sat beside the one large window in the room's only chair, finger holding her place in a novel. Pictures covered the walls, all hand drawn landscapes and people and places.

"That door was locked." Was all she said in a voice of unusual calm.

"You sure?" The Doctor looked back at the door, nose crinkling. "Why aren't you in class?"

"I was. But I started feeling poorly, so I came back here. Who are you?" Her unflinching eyes never left the doctor: Eyes that betrayed nothing about their owner but a desire to understand. They were a little too wide, like her whole world was out of focus.

"My name is the Doctor, and this here is Martha Jones, medical student and top of her class. Martha, do you still have that stethoscope I lent you?"

"Did you break into my room to give me a checkup?" The girl asked, getting a faint edge to her voice.

"I'm sorry; I'm being terribly rude, aren't I? No, that's not why we're here. …What is your name?" The Doctor asked in a kinder tone.

"Ender." She replied flatly.

"It's nice to meet you, Ender. We, ah, we're looking for someone; Someone different, not from around here."

"I can't help you, then. I was raised in this school. I've been here since I was eight."

"And before then?"

"I don't remember. I always assumed adoption agencies and orphanages."

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"That's all?"

"That's enough for me. You _are_ in a school dormitory—I'm one of the oldest ones here, so if you're looking for age, you've come to the wrong place."

"Right… You don't have a fog watch by any chance do you?"

"…No… I use my cellular as a timepiece."

"Are you sure? Not even a broken one? You may not notice it or have forgotten."

"Doctor, I am an orphan in a girl's home. I do not know how much stuff you think I have that I might have forgotten something."

"Oh… Right… Sorry. Please, just let Martha check your heart. It will only take a moment…?" The Doctor asked. She smelled of Gallifrey, but she was too young: It could still be a trick. In response, Ender only nodded gravely toward Martha.

First Martha listened to the left side of Ender's chest as so many years of medical school had taught her to. She closed her eyes, hearing the truth before even moving the stethoscope. Four beats, two hearts. She turned her dark eyes back on the Doctor and nodded once. The Doctor caught his breath and was silent.

It was Ender who spoke next. "You were looking for someone with two hearts."

"Yes." The Doctor replied. "And we found one. Who else knows?"

"No one. I never let anyone examine me, just told them my heart is a little too fast. It's just a birth defect, but it's… weird."

"So why did you let us?" Martha asked.

Ender looked from Martha to the Doctor, "Him. He's different. He smells different. Time does not recognize you, Doctor."

"No, no… No, I guess it doesn't. Your hearts, you know, aren't a defect. I have two, too. I mean, as well. …I also have two hearts."

"…Is he always like this?" Ender looked at Martha.

"No… Well, a little bit. I think he's nervous." She replied. Ender nodded sympathetically.

The Doctor sighed dramatically. "Look, I'm a Time Lord: A race of people from a planet called Gallifrey. I'm the last of the Time Lords. Or, I thought I was. I don't know who you are, where you came from, or how you got here. I don't know if you really are one of us… I doubt it… But I will find out. I promise you that."

"I suppose my life is complete now, then," Ender snarked, tearing her eyes away from the Doctor. At that moment a honey bee had landed on her window sill, lethargic and drained. Ender stood from her chair, setting her book down, and pulled an aluminum bottle-cap out of her pocket. A cup of cold tea sat on her desk amid piles of books and an open laptop, and she filled the bottle-cap with the cold, sugary liquid.

"What're you doing?" Martha asked incredulously as Ender went to open the window.

"Opening my window." She replied.

"Don't let that bee in here!"

"She's running out of energy; I'm giving her sugary tea so she won't die on my window sill. What did bees ever do to you, anyway?"

"Sting me, for one."

"There must have been a reason she felt attacking you was worth dying over." Ender said pointedly. The little worker bee crawled to the cap-bowl and started drinking with a long spike of pink tongue. Martha blinked and looked at the Doctor, who raised his eyebrows.

"Ahm… So… That was a little… Time Lordy. How is it that I openly confess to you that I am an alien from a different planet and you don't even bat an eye?"

"Maybe I don't believe you."

"Oh, now that can't be it. You sense something! You've lived your whole life with this empty feeling inside your head, like something has been missing for all these years, haven't you? That went away about a half hour ago." The fever of discovery was blazing in his eyes, but she held their gaze without burning. Her eyes, widened with surprise, betrayed this as truth. "That was us landing here in the TARDIS, my ship. That empty place, that loneliness, is the aftermath of losing the other Time Lords." His last sentence brought about utter silence to the room.

Blinking away some emotion, Ender broke the silence. "…A lot of things sound like truth when you're not trying too hard to look for the truth in them. Maybe you're just two wicked people come to pick on a day-dreamy, lonely girl. If I follow back to your _spaceship _do I get abducted and sold to the highest bidder?"

"No! What?" The Doctor's face pinched in horror. "No, of course not!"

"I know it's weird and sort of unbelievable," Martha added, "But I've been traveling with him for quite a while. No real harm done to me, see? I got all my fingers." She twirled the aforementioned phalanges. "And you get to see all of time and all of space and meet whoever you want and then more than you could ever imagine. I can see that you like space: you've drawn the Orion constellation there, and that looks like a nebula." She pointed two specific pieces of hand-drawn wallpaper.

"Horsehead Nebula, yeah." Ender gave her a guarded smile.

"Just come see the TARDIS." The Doctor asked, almost pleaded. "We'll stand ten feet back if you want, or inside, or whatever you want. But I promise, you'll be convinced."

Not willing to relent, Ender kept up the argument. "So you just parked a spaceship in the middle of Dublin?"

"She's really good at blending in."

"Cloaking device?"

"Chameleon Circuit, but you're not far off."

Ender stood at her desk, leaning her palms against the cool wood, and looked at the window. The bee, energy restored, flew into the room, once about her head, and back out into the open air. Because her back was turned, they didn't see her whisper so quietly, "You're welcome, little one." She turned around and sat on her desk—accidentally bumping her laptop, causing the screen to light up—facing them again. "Bees are industrious voyagers; intelligent martyrs feared but depended on. That is why I like them. The only reason I will go is because you remind me of them, somehow." She said to the Doctor.

His eyes flitted back to her from her computer screen. "I'm really, really happy about that. But can you tell me what that is?" he nodded to her laptop. The image was a popular one of a white skinned, one-eyed baby shark.

"Oh, that's Cyclops Shark. The internet thought he was a hoax for ages, but it's not: It's a genetic mutation."

"No," He frowned, brow wrinkling, "it's an inhabitant of the moon Europa."

**The Doctor will return in Episode 2 - The Lunar Sea**


	2. The Lunar Sea

**Episode 2- The Lunar Sea**

"Swim _FASTER_!" Martha yelled at the top of her lungs.

"Come on, Doctor! Hurry!" Ender matched her volume. Standing, or rather hopping, in the doorway of the TARDIS, fists clenched in fear, three hearts beating between them, the Doctor's girls screamed encouragement as he swam for his life. Helpless, it was all they could do. They saw the bioluminescent flashings of the giant fish grow steadily closer to the Doctor's kicking feet. His space suit, which here was doubling as a swimsuit, was bulky and impeded his motion; obviously he hadn't expected needing to be in a rush.

The TARDIS's artificial atmosphere protected Martha and Ender from the ocean that surrounded them on all sides, a little bubble in a lunar sea. Around them in the dark water, more bio-luminous shapes dodged in and out of sight, ever closer to the struggling Doctor. Seconds had passed, but it seemed like hours to the two watching him try to beat sea creatures at swimming.

His breath was coming in great gasps, and his eyes were staring to show the subtle signs of losing hope. Then something grabbed his foot: Blood bloomed in the water.

But he was close enough for Ender to see his eyes: She grabbed the sonic screwdriver from Martha's white-knuckled grip and pointed it, hoping she could guess at what she was doing.

**Twenty-Four Hours Previous**

"Here is where I parked the TARDIS—my sort-of spaceship time-machine." The Doctor handed Ender a hastily scrawled address. "If you are coming, meet us there in half an hour. Bring whatever you want, room isn't an issue. If you decide you don't want to come, just don't and after a half-hour, we'll leave and you may never see us again." He stopped to take a breath, eyeing the girl, his new discovery: a Time Lord raised by humanity. "But… Please come." In his dark eyes was the sadness of centuries; Ender recognized in them a loneliness she could never explain.

"Half-hour," She smirked in reply. He and Martha left and she turned to grab her things. This room, this lone room had been her home for years. Roommates never stayed with her long, so she was always alone with her things here. One by one she pulled her pictures off the walls and placed them lovingly in a folder. They read like a chronological order of her life, starting from an eight-year-old's doodles of warm landscapes and fantasy animals to buildings and faces in refined charcoal and pencil. In five minutes, she traveled nine years of her life, an illustrated autobiography. Her attention turned to her papers and books, wondering what to do with them. Most of them were the library's, but she took five that were her own: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Hobbit among them. The handful of clothes that weren't uniforms where thrown into her backpack along with her makeup and daily supplies. That was everything, with her laptop and her cell phone... almost everything. Hidden in her mattress, accessible only by a slit cut into the hem, was a little wooden box. Its silvery lock jingled as she placed it in her backpack.

Lastly she left a note explaining that she had just left and that in a few months she would have aged out anyway. No one would care or think twice about it. After a last spin around the room, she walked through the door for the last time. With her backpack it just looked like she was leaving campus to study for a while, so no one stopped her.

The Doctor and Martha were chatting on a bench at the address she was given, waiting for her. Beside their bench was a blue police box. Before she could even greet them, it had attracted all of her attention, for beneath the wavering light of the shady trees it seemed to move. …Or _did_ it move? A wavering form, neither here nor there, nor anywhere at all; It both existed and didn't exist in the same way it both did and did not belong.

"I see you've spotted the TARDIS." The Doctor said with a smile.

"I… I believe I've seen it before." Mentally going through every memory file her brain contained, she looked for the blue box, but all that came to mind was a television screen. "Christmas… Almost every Christmas we are assaulted or visited by aliens. Twice I've seen a box like this on the news. They didn't mean to film it, it was just there."

The Doctor grinned. "Yeah, that sounds like me. Excellent memory."

"Thanks. So… There's got to be more on the inside, right?"

"Well, actually—Yes. How did you know?" He looked a little deflated.

"I, um… I kind of think she told me. But then, you did say that room wasn't an issue."

"Oh, yeah, I did, didn't I? Shame... I always like the big surprise." He said, opening the door. Despite her guess, Ender couldn't contain the gasp of shock that leapt from her.

"Woah."

"That's more like it!" The Doctor yipped, bounding to the center of the room like a puppy. "Now, there is an alien shark on Earth and we need to know why."

"It's dead. It has been dead for about a year now."

His eyes saddened a little, softening and wrinkling around the edges. "And I think I know why. Whether I'm wrong or right, we still need to know why it was here, and return it to its people if we can."

"Sharks are 'people' in space?"

Martha piped up. "One of the first rules of traveling with him is that 'people' is a word used a lot and not triflingly. A lot of things start taking on new meanings."

"I can appreciate that." Ender replied, setting her backpack down.

"Good! Do you remember where it was found?" The Doctor gracelessly kicked one of the controls while his hands held down two more buttons and knobs.

"Yeah, uh… Cerralvo Island in the Gulf of California."

The Doctor adjusted one of the knobs while looking at a hanging screen or monitor. "Off we go, then!" Holding his foot on one button, he pulled a lever. "Allos-y!"

She turned to Martha, but not fast enough to realize that Martha was holding onto the railing. "Does he need hel—" Ender's sentence was cut short by her falling clear over. The TARDIS was off.

"Smooth ride." She groaned as the whirring and painful jarring ended.

"You get used to it." Martha said, helping her up.

"Really?"

"… No, not really. Not ever at all." She chuckled and Ender grinned.

The Doctor righted himself and walked to the door of the TARDIS. "Ah, the sunny Gulf of Californ—" It was his turn to have his words cut off as the opened door pelted him with rain. "Well, usually sunny… unless it's rainy."

"Profound." Ender mocked dryly.

"Oh, I'm full of profundities. At least we're on land." He closed the door again, shaking water out of his hair. "Right then, where's my umbrella? U… U, U, U…" A section of the floor came loose in his hands and revealed an old steamer trunk. "There you are!" He held the red question-mark shaped handle of a black umbrella in his hand.

"What about us? Are we just going to get soaked?" Martha asked a little impatiently.

"What? Do I smell? Huddle up, come on, let's go." He walked out the door with Martha on his arm, as Ender skulked awkwardly behind them. Fortunately for her, they made a lee in the rain for her to hide behind. They had landed on a beach, broad swells attacking the coastline like so many soldiers, erosion their only weapon. The Doctor walked right up to no-man's-land the space of damp sand between the water and land. "Oh, I really didn't want to get my feet wet…" he said through gritted teeth.

"Well, it _is_ raining," Martha said, "and this _is_ a beach."

"Oh, yes, alright." He handed her the umbrella and his greatcoat and rolled up his trousers to his knees. A few steps into the swells he just sort of stopped and put his hands under the water.

Ender yet again turned to Martha for an explanation. She just shook her head. "If he came with a guide book, I'd give it to you. But that book has not been written. ...I doubt it ever will."

"I bet it would be blue."

"What?"

"The guide book. I bet it would be blue." She repeated. Before Martha could comment, the Doctor returned to them.

"I just sent out the mental equivalent of a sonar ping, since I know you're wondering. Like I said, the Europan psychic sharks are, literally, sharks that hunt by extending a psychic field to find their prey: that's why they only have one eye—they've evolved past needing two. In the next couple thousand years they'll even lose that one."

"And Europan Psychic Sharks, is that their proper title?" Ender asked.

"Yes, why?"

"I donno, it's just you'd think and apex predatory race from one of Saturn's moons might have a cooler name."

"Right, 'Great White Shark' is so much more creative." He said snarkily. Ender just shrugged, smirking. "Anyway, any more that heard that ping will come swimming this way promptly."

"You think there's more than the one?" Martha asked.

"Maybe; I can't imagine why there would be just one."

"Excuse me!" yelled a gruff voice from somewhere behind them. A staunch little man with a shaggy white beard and cap—looking like a quintessential sailor—trudged up the beach to meet them. "What the hell are you doing on my property?"

"Oh, is this _your_ property?" The Doctor asked, putting on a confused air. "Had no idea, sorry. We're just, passing through—"

"Tourists, see." Martha added. "We saw something about this place on the internet and thought it would be a wicked place to visit."

"Oh, what did you hear?"

"That this area produces mutant sharks from space." The Doctor's voice was even and calm, but his eyes were accusing. Martha and Ender both turned incredulous eyes on him as the man's eyes widened in obvious fear. "That's really a weak Shimmer. Where did you get that disguise? JAWS?"

"How did you…?"

"I am the Doctor. And simple technology like that Shimmer doesn't work on me, so you can just turn that off now." He crossed his arms, left eyebrow cocked. The man hesitated for a minute, then sighed and fiddled with the device on his belt. The costume dissolved and left in its place a bluish green being: the white beard turned into five short tentacles protruding from his chin, his hands became thickly webbed, and his hat—once removed—revealed a webbed dorsal spine.

"Is he from Europa, too?" Martha whispered to the Doctor.

"Of course not!" the alien man said, looking indignant. "I'm from Corsax Twelve."

"Ah, a Corsaxian, of course!" here the Doctor turned to his companions and whispered in the quietest voice Ender had heard yet, "Not the brightest race, but prone to tempers, so be careful. So," he turned back to the Corsaxian, "what are you doing here?"

"Well, see, I was… disowned by my folks, and they are kind of important people back on Corsax, so it made life a little rough to be out of their good graces. Rather than staying, I just moved here."

"Why here?"

"Good water to land ratio… It's comfy. And a little homey."

"Right… okay. And the Europan shark? What do you know about it?"

"Oh that thing was a blasted shame. I didn't mean for the poor little guy to die, I don't know what happened. I kept him healthy in a tank after I bought him—quarantine, you know—and turned him loose…"

"You _bought_ him?" The Doctor squinted, lips curling in anger.

"I know it wasn't my proudest moment, buying him off the black market like I did, but I thought he might make a good pet and it gets a little lonely out here, you know?"

"Lonely? So get a roommate! Don't go buying someone's kidnapped child!"

"Kidnapped? It's just an animal, Doctor; a pet."

The minute his patience snapped was visible and changed his whole demeanor. "He was not _just an animal_, you idiot! That creature was intelligent! Maybe not at intelligent as you and certainly not as intelligent as me, but smart enough to know he had been taken from his mother, from his family and friends! The poor child was the most intelligent thing in the sea. It knew it was all alone and _it died of loneliness."_

"I'm sorry, I just thought…"

"Don't tell me you're sorry. Where is it? Where is his body?"

"The Smithsonian, I think: in a jar of formaldehyde in some museum. I'm not the one who found him dead."

"And _you're_ telling that to his family. Come on." The Doctor turned him around and pushed him towards the TARDIS, Martha and Ender following fast on his heels. Before any words could be said, the Doctor was at the controls and the doors were closed. Martha blocked them so the Corsaxian couldn't run. Several times he tried to speak, seeing there was no way out, but the Doctor shushed him rather harshly.

"But they'll _eat_ me!" he finally managed to eke out.

Finally the Doctor, regaining a little patience, sighed. "What is your name?"

"Brax, sir. Scopel Brax."

"Well, Scopel Brax, I can't promise they won't eat you seeing as how you are responsible for the death of one of their young, but I can promise that I will try to deter them from the idea. They are probably evolved enough by now to listen to reason. …yeah, probably."

"Is that supposed to be comforting?"

"If you chose to look at it that way," the Doctor pulled a lever and pushed a button and the TARDIS was off again in her bumpy, jostling flight. It seemed barely a minute passed before she landed again. Several more knobs, buttons, and levers were fiddled with in some mysterious order before the Doctor left the controls to open the door. The world outside it was black: Utterly and completely black.

"Is it night-time?" Ender asked, creeping closer.

"I'm not sure. It's hard to tell when you're underwater."

"What?!" Martha, Brax, and Ender yelped in chorus.

"This is Europa, the whole surface is water covered in a thin sheet of ice. But the water under the ice is warm because—"

"Thermal vents heat it, forming a salty, life-sustaining ocean." Ender finished, seemingly without thinking about it. She suddenly looked nervous and fidgety with three pairs of eyes on her, all filled with varying degrees of surprise. "…I'm up on my Astronomy. And 25 kilometers is not a 'thin sheet of ice,' Doctor."

"No, I suppose not. Wow, gold star for the new girl!" he grinned jovially. "Not bad, Ender."

"Thanks. So, what's keeping the water from rushing in right now, or crushing us? A force-field?"

"Sort of. It's the TARDIS's life support system extended a little bit farther than usual. Now I'm going to go get a diving suit. Keep an eye on him." He walked away and down a hall that Ender hadn't had time to notice. Naturally, she followed him.

"Is this what you do? You swoop in on unsuspecting people and take them away to foreign planets?"

"Not always."

"No? So you won't feed me to alien sharks when you decide I've done something wrong?"

"I donno, what have you done wrong?" He stopped and turned to look at her.

"Everyone has something in their past that other people would call sins. I'm lucky I've only had seventeen years; not much time to commit many more sins than bad grades. But who are you to decide what punishment people deserve?"

"I'm the Doctor, that's who." He snapped. "I do what is necessary." Back turned again to her, he continued walking down the freakishly long corridor.

She stayed planted. "You are around every time aliens come to Earth. Is that you just swooping in?"

"No, that is me saving the earth." He turned back to look at her again. She locked his eyes to judge the truth of his statement.

"That's a thankless job."

"Yeah… but that's not what matters." They were silent for a while, sizing each other up, questioning the silence. "When those aliens came to Earth, were you afraid?"

"When I had to be, yes. But mostly I was curious about them. I always wished that just once it would be Earth's friendly neighbors coming to call and give us a hand. I always wanted to learn what they knew, let them teach us. Everyone else was afraid… But I always wondered if they weren't like the bees, and we were just afraid of what we didn't understand. As more time goes by, though, I wonder…"

"Wonder what?"

"Who are the bees, really? Humanity or the aliens?"

The Doctor looked at her for a very long time. "Maybe one day you'll answer that. Maybe I'll help." He started walking again. A door the right was opened to reveal a plethora of random suits from scuba to space. He reached for the dome helmet of one as Ender examined a hardhat suit.

"That looks rather like a space suit, Doctor."

"Well, it is. But I don't have anything else with proper life support and pressurization systems. I did once, but I had a run in with a very large squid in the Castopia Quadrant…"

"I look forward to hearing that story someday." And they began the ten minute walk back to the control room. It was basically the same way they left it, but with more begging from Brax. "…He isn't a bad man, Doctor, he's just dense."

"Yeah, I know. I'm mostly doing this to scare him straight. I'm going to talk to the sharks myself. Martha, open the doors, please, and see if they've noticed us yet. Surely they've noticed something _fishy_ going on." He grinned at his own atrocious pun while putting on the suit. "No one? Really?" The three just stared at him in reply. "Fine, then. Leave the doors open."

Presently, lights appeared in the blackness surrounding the TARDIS; the lights were in constant motion, the living ghosts of animals that couldn't be seen. "They are bioluminescent." Ender said, surprised.

"Yep." The Doctor replied shortly. She could not gauge how far or near they were—not until one swam right up against the field the TARDIS made around herself. The creature was a leviathan; it seemed to take a whole minute for its bulk to pass their doors, never a tangible form, just rows and rows of brilliant pastel ghost lights.

"It's like they're barely there… or else they're a void in the matter of their world. They're just there enough to scare you…. Haha! That's it! I'll call them void sharks!"

"They already have a name."

"Yes, but I have already pointed out that it is a disappointing one." The Doctor had no defense for this and just went on putting on his helmet with a rather exaggerated sigh. "Martha, hold on to this," he extended to her the sonic screwdriver. "I don't think there's much down there that will need sonic-ing."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah…" he bobbed his head. "Mostly."

"What if you get into trouble?"

"I'll think of something." He flashed a winning smile and walked out into the black water. It is very strange to see a person just walk into water, not like walking into it on a beach, but literally pressing into a wall a thousand feet high. The effects of gravity changed completely, lifting the suit where it sagged before. The water itself was not dark and they could see his pale form half-walking, half-swimming out to meet the lights.

"'Careful now. Or Hobbits go down and join the dead ones, and light little candles of their own.'" Ender whispered, very much all to herself. Sometimes the quotes of the old, wise voices of the world fit her more than her own, and Gollum's warning to the Hobbits in the Dead Marshes of the _Lord of the Rings_ seemed perfectly appropriate at the moment.

The lights all seemed to swim away and for a moment some relief breezed through the TARDIS. Then one broad light circled near the Doctor in an elliptical orbit, growing nearer then farther, making him struggle to keep an eye on it. Finally, they were beginning to see the form of the sharks, great black skinned muscled beasts with gaping toothy maws; a single blue eye kept careful vigil over its prey at all times. This ambassador for the sharks seemed of calm temper, pectoral fins curved in the relaxed demeanor Ender recognized from the sharks of earth, his bioluminescent spots flickering every pale color from blue to green to purple.

The Doctor was obviously trying to communicate, but getting frustrated. "Maybe they haven't evolved this kind of communication yet…" Ender mumbled nervously.

"He's good at talking…" Martha said, reassuringly. "He'll get it." The shark began to slow in its circles, growing farther and farther away before circling back. Maybe the Doctor had gotten the image across. He seemed to think the same as he was making sharp, excited motions from where he stood on the seafloor.

And then something changed. The Doctor froze, the shark wheeled from the furthest part of its orbit, fins sharply flattened. It gained speed; it was charging. The Doctor started swimming.

"Swim _FASTER_!" Martha yelled at the top of her lungs.

"Come on, Doctor! Hurry!" Ender matched her volume. Standing, or rather hopping, in the doorway of the TARDIS, fists clenched in fear, three hearts beating between them, the Doctor's girls screamed encouragement as he swam for his life. Helpless, it was all they could do. They saw the bioluminescent flashings of the giant fish grow steadily closer to the Doctor's kicking feet. His space suit, which here was doubling as a swimsuit, was bulky and impeded his motion; obviously he hadn't expected needing to be in a rush.

The TARDIS's artificial atmosphere protected Martha and Ender from the ocean that surrounded them on all sides, a little bubble in a lunar sea. Around them in the dark water, more bioluminous shapes dodged in and out of sight, ever closer to the struggling Doctor. Seconds had passed, but it seemed like hours to the two watching him try to beat sea creatures at swimming.

His breath was coming in great gasps, and his eyes were staring to show the subtle signs of losing hope. Then something grabbed his foot: Blood bloomed in the water.

But he was close enough for Ender to see his eyes: She grabbed the sonic screwdriver from Martha's white-knuckled grip and pointed it, hoping she could guess at what she was doing. A brief look at the settings and she pointed it at the Doctor, grimacing gritted teeth against her fear. The button clicked and the blue light whirred and a hole opened up in the Doctor's air tank. All Ender could do was push Martha out of the way before the pressurized-air-propelled Doctor flew through the TARDIS doors. The shark turned up and swam overhead as the Doctor collided with the TARDIS controls and groaned.

"_Doctor_?" Martha yelled, running to him and removing his helmet.

"She bit me." He said indignantly. "Ah! Ow! My joints hurt, why do my joints hurt?"

"The Bends," Ender said. "Decompression sickness. You went from high pressure to low pressure to quickly." She and Martha started pulling him out of his punctured diving suit, so soon he lay groaning in his very damp and dapper blue suit and tie. Ender stifled a giggle.

"What?" The Doctor looked at her.

"You're like James Bond. Crawling out of the sea and off to a dinner party." She went off in a full-blown snicker.

The Doctor grinned. "007… I rather like that. The James Bond of space and time…"

"Quite fitting." Martha agreed with a chuckle above her work bandaging his ankle. Ender seemed pleasantly surprised that her joke made an impression. Before he should, the Doctor sat up and—despite the pain of the Bends—forced them to help him up so he could fiddle with the controls.

"We are getting out of here!" The Doctor said. The TARDIS started to whirr… and then it stopped. "…What? _What?_" he snapped at the engines. "Oh. Oh, no."

"What is it?" Martha asked.

"The sharks. They're marking a psychic field around the TARDIS. It's interrupting her functions, it's not letting us leave," which didn't seem to stop him from pressing every button of knob he could reach, while examining his rotating screen, in an attempt to set the TARDIS free.

"You're kidding." She walked to the door and looked out to see the sharks—all of them—winding circles around the blue box, lighting up the ocean with their glowing. "What did you _tell_ it?"

"I think it caught the wrong part of the conversation. Their abilities are less advanced than I expected them to be."

"What part of the conversation would that be?" Martha asked, following Ender's train of thought.

"Ahm… the part about their kidnapped youngling being dead."

"Oh, so this is not the welcome party, then." Martha groaned.

Ender stared out the door at the flashing lights as they wove their watery cocoon around them. In her bones she felt the empty ache of loss, for never having anything at all it a lot like experiencing loss. For a year—an Earth year—these animals remembered their loss and mourned it, and were angry when they discovered its fate. That wouldn't make them animals at all then—No more than a human who was angry at loss. Without thinking, she reached out her hand to the water, the crushing, dark water. At first there was a blur, then a sudden stillness, a tenseness in the fabric of the situation.

"Ender…" the Doctor warned, but his voice was distant to Ender's busy mind.

A blue eye appeared out of the black, an angry maw and ragged teeth. Trailing black fins, bedecked in splendorous color, sailed behind taught muscle like the pinions of a bird and the flowing of a pennant. She looked into the eye, open, lidless, filled with an emotion not a blank hunger: sadness. Ender's lips trembled as she whispered the simple, sad words, "I'm sorry."

Braced for impact, she cringed when it took her hand… only that is exactly when it did not do. All she felt was the shark's rough skin against her fingers, chaffing the delicate nerves. All its momentum went to the side as at the last moment it checked its blow. Turning, it came this time to face her, and she did not recoil at the touch of its snout at it came to rest against her soft palm. "I'm sorry," she repeated again. And then she felt it: A probing consciousness, a questioning, and curiosity robed in mistrust and fear. She felt thoughts that were not her own, ideas and images that borrowed her brain to turn them into words and sentences. She felt their life as deeply as she felt her own.

"So cold in this dark place, but their family made it warm," she said with words that were neither her's nor the shark's but something of both. "Their children are white and lightless, so they must stay with their elders, hide under their darkness or the great evils will come and get them."

"What great evils?" The Doctor asked.

"The great evils that take them, the ones that took the youngling that sent us here. Oh! Why is he gone?" she moaned, tears leaking out of her eyes as the shark twitched along its whole length. "He was mine, why is he goneee…?"

"You're talking with the shark and as the shark…" the Doctor said, coming close to Ender, standing beside her.

"Yes." Ender sniffled, in control now.

"This shark is the mother."

"Yes." Her moan was more drawn this time.

"Oh, I am sorry… I am so sorry." He whispered. The mother's blue eye turned to him and locked on to his. Then the voice stopped talking through Ender and formed inside her head, a private conversation.

'_I'm sorry.' _The shark's not-quite-a-voice ghosted through her head

_For what?_

_ 'Hurting him.'_

_ It's okay. You didn't understand._

_ 'No. I saw in his head one of the great evils.'_

_ What? _In reply, a figure popped before her mind's eye, blueish skinned with five short tentacles where a beard should have been. _Brax._

_ 'The name of evil. Beware him, you are a youngling yet.'_

_ I'm old enough._

_ 'No. You are pale, still, and have no lights of your own.'_

_ We stay pale, and without light. Look at the Doctor. He's an adult and pale as a proper Englishman._

_ 'No… he is darkness that burns.'_

And then she withdrew. She and her family turned and swam away.

"Look at that!" The Doctor grinned. "How did you know?"

"Know what?" Ender breathed, coping with the sudden remembrance that she didn't have a very large family at all.

"That you had to touch them to communicate? I was right, they aren't advanced enough to just read minds from a distance; they can sense life, but can't understand it unless they touch it."

"I didn't know I just felt the need."

"You are brave, Ender North."

"No, I just don't ever run. But right now that's not important."

"What is?"

"Where is Scopel Brax?" she turned to look around the room, the same as Martha and the Doctor. "He is Mother's Great Evil, he… who steals children."

"Find him!" The Doctor shouted, running for the hallway. He stopped once he got there and backed away, hands in the air.

"Found me." Brax replied, walking into the control room. In his hands were an imposing looking weapon that Ender automatically labeled a space cannon. "I wasn't messing with no one, but you couldn't leave well enough alone."

"You were messing with _them_!" Martha pointed at the still-open door.

"They were just animals! I swore I thought they were!"

"You touched them, the children you stole!" Ender accused. "You must have spoken with them, you must have heard them, felt their fear!"

"No." The Doctor sneered. "He's too simple. A man who turns to violence when he is faced with his own guilt, a man to simple to see the fear in the eyes of a child, or recognize the loneliness that slowly killed it."

"Smart enough to fool you into thinking I was just an idiot."

"Well, you've got me there. So what is this, then? You sell them? You didn't buy him off the black market, you were trying to sell him weren't you?"

"It takes a while, not many people can afford my prices: I'm the only one to ever drill through the ice to get them."

"Great accomplishment!" the Doctor snapped, searching his inner pockets for something—the sonic screwdriver still in Ender's left hand. He locked eyes with hers, and with them he pointed to the screwdriver. She blinked once in acknowledgement.

"I think it is! Lived on the surface long enough to drill through that ice at its weakest spots... It's a lot of work for a swim." He chuckled.

Ender took the opportunity to march angrily up to Brax, ignoring the space cannon, swiftly passing off the screwdriver when she passed the Doctor. "You made a living selling people, you worm!"

"You should step back, missy." Brax shoved the cannon at her.

"I don't run. And besides, I don't think you'll shoot me. I don't think you meant to hurt anyone, and you're just scared right now. You think this is easier than facing the music, but it's not."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you." Brax snapped. The cannon aimed, and Ender breathed a deep breath. Then the sonic screwdriver whirred, and very suddenly the disabled cannon was thrown against the wall and the Doctor's wrath fell upon Scopel Brax in full force.

"_I don't like guns_," he snarled. "I especially don't like guns when you point them at my friends. Get out. Get out now. You're a fish, you can swim. The sharks are gone now, you might just survive. _GET OUT._"

Brax had no choice. He flew out the doors and the Doctor closed them behind him. "We're going." The engines whirred and the TARDIS dematerialized without flaw or delay this time.

"Will he survive?" Martha asked.

"I don't know."

"You were scared." Ender pointed out.

"I _am_." He sighed and leaned on the console, for just a moment looking like a very old man. Without thinking, both of his companions moved toward him. He looked from one to the other and inhaled deeply, turning around to sit.

"You've got to talk, Doctor." Martha warned.

He raised his left eyebrow and nodded. "Give it time. Let's get some lunch first, hm? Fish and chips?"

The TARDIS landed and the Doctor and Martha strode out, but Ender stood in the doorway. "What's wrong?" Martha turned back to her.

"This is Dublin. We're back in Dublin." Her voice shook.

"Yeah, I thought it would make you more comfortable." He Doctor smiled. "You know, help you recover from being the first person to commune with psychic sharks. …Ender?"

Her downturned face hid eye verging on tears. "If I step out of this TARDIS, does this melt away like so many dreams before?"

"What? No, no!" he ran up and hugged her. "That was real! That was the realest thing in the universe! And you! You were exceptional."

She clutched his greatcoat, a little child grasping at anything secure. "I have such dreams, such living dreams and such hope that they're real… Time travel, space, people, places, foreign skies… but they always crumble."

"They won't this time, I promise. I'm as real as you, and we are both improbable things lost in a world of impossible discoveries! Come on, Ender North, take my hand. Fish and chips are waiting for a girl who cares for bees and calls a shark 'Mother.'" He put his arm around her and led her away. She glanced back at her backpack, left neglected.

Inside, she knew was her past locked in folders, computers, books and a small wooden box. The future was outside, and it seemed nothing was locked from her.

**The Doctor will return in Episode 3- Wander Lust**

_(Author's Note: It was brought to my attention that last post I listed a Gallifreyan fob watch a 'fog' watch on accident. My bad. Any constructive criticism is welcome!)_


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